Speaking of the effectiveness of .50 round balls... couple years ago I hit a doe head on at about 8 yards, she dropped on the spot, not thrashing around or anything. She had come running up out of ravine and we met head on, I aimed center chest, a snap shot really, and fired. I like to recover the round ball when possible, so during butchering I followed the wound path and ended up finding the round ball embedded in the interior of the spinal column. The round ball hit her dead center from head on and travelled into the spinal column causing instant and complete paralysis. Now that was a "dead center" shot.